Page 20 of What Whispers in the Dark
Then waited.
A smirk crept up his face as he wedged his shoulder against a tree, crossing an ankle over the other, and he leaned into it, then dropped one sword and his tunic in the moss below.
Clever girl.Thinking she had gone unnoticed. She almost had. If not for the fact that he needed her to hate him, perhaps he would praise her for it.
Garrik folded his arms across his chest and rubbed his chin to stifle his grin, amused by how she defied his orders. WhileJade slept soundly in their tent. While his entire Dragons’ encampment slumbered save for his sentries, who would be reprimanded come morning, she was here.
She had played a cunning little game with him in his tent the morning he rescued her from Telldaira. Little did she know she was about to play his.
Howdidyou slip past my sentries and my senses? Twice,he mused but quickly sliced his focus on the way her muscles bunched, clinging to the tree.
Alora’s breath stuttered. She bit her cheek as if to distract herself from breathing too heavily for fear he would find her out.Too late.The slight tremble in her body proved how hard she tried to keep from moving. The tiny shift of her hips. The way she bit that starsdamned lip thinking about when it was safe enough to?—
There it is.He darkly chuckled.
That single thought that he was gone. That she was safe enough to turn back to camp?—
His boot clamped down on a branch, eliciting asnap.The distance between them was so small, a few strides at most, but he turned into smoke and wind and shadow. Braiding into existence behind her and prepared for the moment?—
Alora whirled, illuminated in an amber glow as the wind peppered him with the wintry scent of her hair, in time for the sharpened edge of his sword to glide from his sheath.
The soft flesh of her neck met cold steel in the torchlight.
“Thought you would go for another stroll, clever girl?” he rumbled, low and dangerous. Amused, he slipped on the mask of Elysian’s deadliest predator.
She froze, and he could not steal his attention from the way she swallowed against his blade.
Darkness coiled around Garrik’s shoulders as he leaned forward into the light. The breeze shifted through the trees, andhe caught the way she took in the scent of his hair, or the taste of vanilla and oak that carried from his lips. His mouth twisted, brightening the amused hunger in his eyes like a beast who had caught his prey in a chase only he could win.
“Maybe I should double your guard. But then again, it would not make for such”—he bit his bottom lip—“pleasurableinterruptions to my night.”
Instead of retreating, she glared up at him, meeting his stare, unyielding, and with a sharp wince, leaned forward to push against his blade.
Though her bravery brought a warmth to his veins he had not felt in decades, Garrik gritted his teeth and suppressed the urge to growl at the trickle of blood down her neck. Thisgamewas not meant to harm her—just to make her hate him a little more. Despite it, his lips pulled into a wicked grin at her next word.
“Prick.” Her eyes lit with embers.
Excitement gleamed in his.
Fuck. That mouth.The urge to groan was hard to deny.
Why did he find this, from her, especially appealing? Delighting in her defiance. Marveling in her sheer boldness when none otherdaredto speak to him that way?—
A haunting chuckle, far more sinister than he meant it to be, escaped his lips. Garrik controlled his blade to remain perfectly still and leaned forward until he could nearly kiss her with every word. “Hiding in the shadows,” he drawled the words, testing them on his lips and growling his tone so thoroughly it pebbled her flesh. Then said, “Careful. You should know by now that you cannot hide from me. Especially with them watching.” Like they were in on his schemes, Smokeshadows swirled in whorls. They cascaded from his bare shoulders, tendriled around his glistening torso and steely arms, and writhed around his boots. His to command.
And by the skies, again those eyes gleamed. No terror awaited there—none.Her eyes danced with a refreshing stab of defiance, and he waited—prepared for that split-second reaction that she would drive her palm to his face before he would snatch it. But it never came.
Instead, those eyes full of fire morphed. It was only because he was so close that he could see it. How they scanned his face. How they stared deeper into him, as if attempting to penetrate some part of him that did not exist anymore. The one of mercy, perhaps? Or … something more terrifying. The part of him he would never show to anyone. The fractured and damaged remains he kept veiled…
Her eyes glimmered. It felt like she saw him. Not who he was now, but who he used to be.
And he wondered if she could see it in his eyes. If shehadseen it while he trained, fought his demons. The cold, dead, and empty abyss that had seen too much. Experienced too much. Felt … nothing … deserved nothing…
Memories threatened to slither in, but he shoved them away when Alora’s breath hitched, drawing him to the way her eyes trailed down his body. Over the scars marring his abdomen, then raking up to meet his narrowing gaze.
Until that moment, he had forgotten the evidence of his suffering was fully displayed, having been alittledistracted. He moved to pluck the tunic fabric from his abdomen but stilled, remembering he had discarded it by the tree. With nothing to soothe the feeling of pain prickling his scars, he focused on the way flames danced in the reflection of his blade.
Thankfully, she did not notice. Instead, Alora’s eyes browsed his scars—and she did not flinch away. No. There was something else causing that subtle parting of her lips. Something thieving the disdain and contempt from her eyes…
